I might expect to see a face, and, a smile. Maybe multiple faces, multiple smiles.

She said it was a portrait of a neck, but this is not a smile. And she talks about an hourglass as
though it is a portrait of a neck or an hourglass, "Portrait of Neck as Hourglass."

How is this possible?

A stocking pulled to the point just short of severing and this is not the worst nor the cause of
death.

A woman, of course.

A man, of course.

I wonder about ghosts and hauntings and where a person goes after this is done to them.

A woman, of course.

A man, of course.

A portrait of white, hourglass white. A woman, of course. Although it is not her body that
we are speaking of, only a small part of her. "Portrait of Neck as Hourglass."

I might expect a smile, or multiple smiles: "Portrait of a Tree as a Tree" works. I understand
that my conception of portrait needs to expand but I cannot conceive of a portrait of a neck
as an hourglass because this is not something that exists or should ever exist. The stocking
disappeared into the skin and only a small ripple could be seen. The woman was not large and
her folds of flesh had never before swallowed anything so deep. She was not violated in the
usual way, a bloody tampon barring entrance, but the photograph speaks of sterility, white, it is white, a red cast bleeding in from age. Perhaps it was the flash, white on grey metal, the
white nearly translucent now.

But this is a photograph, a portrait, shot on 35mm film — it is truth in the antiquated sense, it
is evidence. It says This Thing Did Exist, At One Point In Time This Thing Was Real. It is
not truth, but Truth.

A woman, of couse.

A man, of course.

Only that time is patiently working on this image and red creeps in from the edges: "Portrait
of Object that Keeps Time" because this is not an hourglass. I imagine the object that keeps
time, or a corseted body, but not a neck.